Theresa May has already outlined her strategy to destroy Labour at the next general election

Theresa
May arrives for a meeting with David Cameron on October 21,
2015.REUTERS/Toby
Melville

Watching the incoming Prime Minister Theresa May make her big
policy speech this morning was like being in an episode of "The
Twilight Zone." May's politics are a backwards mirror-universe of
the real world, in which left is right and right is left.

Put workers' representatives
on company boards, because current board directors tend to be
"drawn from the same narrow social and professional circles as
the executive team and – as we have seen time and time again –
the scrutiny they provide is just not good enough."

Add consumer representatives
to boards as well.

Make shareholder votes on
corporate pay not just advisory but binding, and require a vote
on executive compensation every year.

"I want to make Britain a country that works not for a privileged
few but for everyone, regardless of who they are and where
they’re from. ...

"Right now, if you’re born poor, you will die on average nine
years earlier than others. If you’re black, you’re treated more
harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white.* If
you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than
anybody else to go to university. If you’re at a state school,
you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you’re
educated privately. If you’re a woman, you still earn less than a
man. If you suffer from mental health problems, there’s too often
not enough help to hand. If you’re young, you’ll find it harder
than ever before to own your own home.

"But, as I have said before, fighting these injustices is not
enough. If you’re from a working-class family, life is just much
harder than many people in politics realise."

She's done this before.

May made her reputation when
she addressed the Police Federation two years ago and told
its members that they had a "contempt for the public," that
4 in 10 black people didn't trust the police, and that she
would break the closed-shop union that has monopoly
representation of the force. The police refused to clap her — an
unheard of act for a Conservative home secretary, for whom this
would normally be friendly turf.

She went back this year and
called the federation's accounts a "slush fund" and a "fraud"
used by corrupt officers to pay for holiday homes and clothes.
These are astonishing slamming comments for a Tory. Her entire
speech could easily have been delivered by a Labour MP. She ended
with the words, "Remember Hillsborough."

This is the Conservative party's strategy for winning the next
general election in 2020: To make a lot of very reassuring,
liberal noises that don't sound anything like Margaret
Thatcher would have said. Cameron
used the same ploy, raising the minimum wage, increasing
funding for the NHS, and maintaining working tax credits.

The Conservatives have been polling four points or more ahead of
Labour ever since.

Now the Tories are looking at Labour and licking their
lips. Corbyn has waged civil war on the moderate wing of his
party. The leadership fight with Angela Eagle will not be over
for weeks. If Corbyn wins, the country will face a choice between
the red meat socialism of Corbyn and the relatively liberal (for
the Tories), moderate, "one nation" Conservatism of May, with
plenty of policies borrowed from the soft-left of Labour.

Given that scenario, it is hard to see a British majority voting
for Labour when they can get most of what they want from a
May government without handing the country's cheque
book over to Corbyn.

*Theresa May, as the home secretary, was in charge of the
criminal justice system and had the power to overhaul or
investigate those processes — so there is some chutzpah
here.